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I tend to agree with pretty much everything. Edmonton had 3 #1 pick on the ice yesterday, and there isn't one I'd trade Subban for.

I'm also quite annoyed at how quick people are to bring him down and how so few tend to step up to defend him. Maybe he's annoying, maybe he's a pain in the locker room, I dunno and I don't really care. On the ice, he's quite often THE best player, pretty much no matter who else is playing.

If I had the choice to keep Galchenyuk or PK, I'd keep PK, and that says a lot cause I think Galchenyuk is amazing. But I think that a Dman of his caliber has simply more impact on the game than any forward can ever have.

I don't think at this point I'd trade Galchenyuk for any of them either.

I know people will say I'm being a homer, Hall is really good. But I wouldn't risk it on Yakupov or Nugent-Hopkins.

Plus Galchenyuk will be a big #1 center one day, I can wait patiently for that. Hall would definitely be a consideration but it's a situation where I prefer the player we have, wouldn't want to risk trading him for any of those 3.

So Shea Weber was on the ice for 3 out of 4 goals scored by the Leafs last night, looking pretty slow and clumsy. I wonder if Darren "Dave Nonis is my cousin!" Dreger thinks that will keep Shea Weber from being selected by Team Canada.

PK has been my favorite player since his rookie season, where he came in in the playoffs and outplayed the likes of Ovechkin and Crosby. I knew this kid was gonna be special. To watch him years later feels so good inside, cant really describe it, im like a proud father. God is this player amazing to watch. His rocket shot vs CGY left me in awe.

1) Perception lags reality. PK will be the new Chara in 2 years, with the respect it gets if he keeps this level up. Eventually it will be to the detriment of anyone's credibility to slag PK. Right now PK's armour is not impermeable because...

2) You never get a second chance to make a first impression - PK was criticized early in his career, Cherry and others have made a permanent dent in Subban's reputation. It takes time to overcome this.

3) PK is different, he represents change. Hockey is a stasis world, see the ridiculous Hertl dossier. There are people who don't like him.

4) The 24/7 sports world needs fresh information and things to talk about. This represented a new angle to a top athlete. Fodder for the soap opera script makers.

You nailed it man. And when people are that good and have all that behind them, people love to hate them. If he keeps it up, the haters will look like fools slagging him.

PK has been my favorite player since his rookie season, where he came in in the playoffs and outplayed the likes of Ovechkin and Crosby. I knew this kid was gonna be special. To watch him years later feels so good inside, cant really describe it, im like a proud father. God is this player amazing to watch. His rocket shot vs CGY left me in awe.

PK is an extremely good defenseman but he still has a fair bit to go before he's called the best defenseman in the league. One of the biggest positive changes to his game that I've seen is that he is more chosey with his shots. Rather than just try and cork one from the blue he will take a second and think what the best shot is. Case in point the Eller goal against Calgary. Last year he would have taken the slap shot and it would have been clocked/stopped. He thought for a second and took an intentionally wide shot and it wound up in the net.

In terms of his defensive abilities he is up there in my opinion and will continue to get better.

But there are still things that he needs to improve on. First is his temper. He still seems to be very easy to **** off and that leads to him taking stupid penalties that put the team in a bad spot. Calgary was a good example. He was better last night against Edmonton but it's not the first time even this year we've seen that from PK. That will continue to evolve as he gets older.

The next two biggest things is that he tends to hang on to the puck way too long and that's combined with doing too much on the rush. In the D zone there will still be the odd time when he tries to do a PK rush but it backfires and ends up losing the puck. Not all the time but still happens and it doesn't need to because he has puck distribution options. Similarly he will try and go end to end which just ends up leading to......usually nothing.

I'm also just waiting for the day when his butt hit attempts ends up getting him suspended for a hit to the end based on how he does the hit.

Sounds like I'm ragging on him but I'm not. He in my opinion is one of the top dmen in the game right but there are player who can produce similar offensive numbers but who aren't as much of a liability compared to Subban.

Names that pop are Keith, Doughty, Chara, Weber, Suter, Yandle and to some degree Karlsson but he has more defensive deficiencies.

Galchenyuk>Subban. Galchenyuk is the type of player we have been looking for 20 years. It will take us another 20 years to find another galchenyuk since we refuse to tank with this team.

Subban is the Habs' best player. AINEC.

Chuckie may surpass him at some point but this isnt the case right now. Most of our offense starts and ends with Subban, be it with first passes or rocket shots, and he's our #1 D, and can easily eat 28mins a night.

Weber, Suter, Karlsson, Subban and Pietrangelo. Doughty, Keith and Chara are right on the periphery (Chara still seems a bit sluggish, carrying over from last year's playoffs...still a beast though). OEL should be there soon.

To play devil's advocate though, i think there is one aspect of Subban's game that makes it difficult to say he's the clear cut top defenseman in the league...and that has to do with his volatility.

Now i should clarify, i don't mean he's a volatile player in that sometimes he's good and sometimes he's bad...its just that his energy and tenacity can sometimes lead him to take a different approach from game to game. Ie he can be solid as a rock one night, then fire like a cannon the next. Honestly after watching him for four years now i can't say which PK i prefer really. I've seen him do things that few NHLers can do, and i have seen him play a workmanlike 28 minutes with little to no fanfare. Both are amazing, and i think most would say that's an asset rather than a liability.

One other way to look at it is, with the other Dmen atop that list, you know pretty much what you are going to get. While as a fan that is not always the most exciting thing, i would wager that as a coach it's nice to know what to expect from a player in terms of performance before the puck drop, and to get that type of performance more often than not. Basically, it's the equivalent of auto-pilot for a coach...put out [stud defenseman], and let him do his thing.

With PK, i think we've all seen Therrien shy away from doing that, and even on nights where PK leads the team in icetime, its never by a large margin and often his partner will be right up there with him. No one can seem to figure out why Therrien is resistent to use a Norris winner for half the game when said norris winner clearly has the legs and lungs to do so? My (uninformed) guess would be that Therrien doesn't know which PK he's putting out there. Granted he's likely putting out one of the best players in the league, but nowadays coaches seem to be so much about systems, that when someone doesn't conveniently fit into one, or in PK's case the system can't be modified around his game like with Karlsson in Ottawa or Suter in Minnesota (i use them as examples because both Ottawa and Minnesota tend to play a very particular style when either player is on the ice), it becomes difficult to gauge how to play him.

Basically, Subban's greatest strength (his ability to burn you in so many ways) also seems to me to be the reason Therrien isn't sure how to use him, and also one possible explanation for why Team Canada would think twice about adding a Norris trophy winner to its roster.

Or it could be because Subban is still trying to reverse the criticism he faced early in his career and to overcome what appears to be a very closeted zenophobic culture in the NHL? I don't really know either way?

His one timer is 1/2 of the time on net and 1/3 of the time in it. That's a hell of a lot just from one d-man. People tend to forget that when the Habs win against good teams, he's pretty much the one shutting down their top lines.

Shea Weber is incredibly overrated...doesn't mean he's not a good player, he definitely is. But he's certainly not the stalwart defensively people make him to be, he makes just as many, if not more brain cramps than Subban does

I never got the Karlsson thing. All the times I've seen him play, I don't see how people (Sens fans) can say so definitively that Karlsson is leagues ahead of Subban. Subban can grab a game by the throat and absolutely control it and he's been able to do so since his rookie season. Only difference now is that he matured and he makes better decisions all over the ice. I think a very strong argument could be made for Subban being a top three defenseman in the league, but his reputation, for some reason, doesn't allow it without people bringing up him being a "locker room cancer" when that's the furthest thing from the truth.